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Still, do not, I urge you, look for The Good through any of
these other things; if you do, you will see not itself but its
trace: you must form the idea of that which is to be grasped
cleanly standing to itself not in any combination, the unheld in
which all have hold: for no other is such, yet one such there
must be.
Now it is clear that we cannot possess ourselves of the power of
this principle in its concentrated fulness: so to do one must be
identical with it: but some partial attainment is within our
reach.
You who make the venture will throw forward all your being but
you will never tell it entire- for that, you must yourself be the
divine Intellect in Act- and at your utmost success it will still
pass from you or, rather, you from it. In ordinary vision you may
think to see the object entire: in this intellective act, all,
less or more, that you can take to mind you may set down as The
Good.
It is The Good since, being a power [being effective outwardly],
it is the cause of the intelligent and intellective life as of
life and intellect: for these grow from it as from the source of
essence and of existence, the Source as being One, simplex and
first because before it was nothing. All derives from this: it is
the origin of the primal movement which it does not possess and
of the repose which is but its absence of need; for neither rest
nor movement can belong to that which has no place in which
either could occur; centre, object, ground, all are alike unknown
to it, for it is before all. Yet its Being is not limited; what
is there to set bounds to it? Nor, on the other hand, is it
infinite in the sense of magnitude; what place can there be to
which it must extend, or why should there be movement where there
is no lacking? All its infinitude resides in its power: it does
not change and will not fail; and in it all that is unfailing
finds duration.
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